Dad and Ma Coot feeding their cute little chicks

You are watching an adorable scenery of a Coot family. Mother and father Coot are feeding the kids. Coots are small water birds as you can see and they often seen on lakes, ponds and rivers. They are close relatives of the Moorhen. A Coot is black with a distinctive white front face shield and beak. The Moorhen however is brown and black and has a distinctive red frontal face and beak. The chicks are also black but with a orange fluff around the face and body. They look really cute with their fluffy feathers.

Coots are omnivorous. They sometimes eat sometimes small animals, eggs and fish, but mainly plant material. They need to dive for food and that is not a big deal for them. They can easily dive below the surface of the water up to six seconds to depths of 2 meters or even more. They re-surface quickly, like a cork as you can see in the video. The chicks are floating on the waves of the diving parents in a funny way.

As you can observe, they have big feet, mostly grey, sport weird lobed toes. Those feet help them to walk on floating water plants and rafts, but also to distribute their body weight.
Enjoy the video of this Coot family and if you have time left, please write a comment below.